What happens when I think too much about a design series? I start playing with the series, re colour the blocks, and start playing, just to see what happens.

This time it is just about everyones favourite, Log Cabin. Here are the blocks ……………

……………. and the ones on the right could almost have happened by mistake if I was making the blocks in real life!

In the series about to start I will use a mixed assortment of the six blocks above, and the results of the first attempt look something like this …………

Adds a new twist to a variation of Barn Raising. You need 28 all dark, 4 all light, 32 half dark with the two dark strips in the ‘wrong’ place.

Long live Log Cabins!

Rather nice allover design with that centre block just about saving it from being boring. Got to admit, I think it would be boring to make all those blocks, even if the quilt would be lovely in a romantic setting.

That border looks 3D, a happy accident of playing with colour/fabric combinations in Electric Quilt!

This is the first time for quite a while that I haven’t scheduled a blog post at least 2 or 3 days in advance, sometimes up to a month in advance if I am going to be away!

It took three attempts to get this picture loaded because I live in a country area, and even though we have broadband, it is not as reliable as it should be. Very frustrating because sometimes it works like a dream, so we know what we are missing when it doesn’t work like that dream!

I think I will turn the air conditioner on and hibernate in front of the computer later and schedule a whole heap of posts so I don’t get a little frustrated and have a one sided screaming match each morning to get a post ready to hit the publish button at 00.01am Greenwich mean time. (Not even a second coffee helped!)

I am not good with routines and schedules, so anything I can pre-prepare is good. I usually do a final edit, add a bit or something when I am home, but will try to keep ahead with adding the pictures!

Back to the design of the day, I don’t think the centre block is quite right, but rather like the big sashing. There are more to come, of course, and I can keep playing to make improvements for future posts.

PS

I was ready to publish a few minutes early, so scheduled this post anyway!

……… after three glorious days amongst real quilts and quilters at Festival of Quilts in Adelaide. Stayed with a quilter for two of the three nights I was away, and went to a Quilter’s Guild of South Australia meeting.

I am not real sure which is best ………. quilts or quilters, but I suspect that quilters win! Found a few new friends, caught up with numerous old friends, met a couple of virtual friends, and connected some of the new and old friends with their virtual other! My two worlds colliding, and it was all fun!

Spent a fair portion of time demonstrating hand quilting, stab stitch technique, sometimes with Rachel expertly machine quilting, sometimes with Julie hand quilting, rocking technique, also Coralie doing hexagons and Tara and Julie both doing needle turn applique. A feast of differing techniques, and I learned heaps. At least one stab sticher came out of the closet, and several went away ready to give rocking another try, some left determined to try machine quilting. Around the corner Southern Comforters were rotary cutting and machine piecing.

Don’t tell anyone, but we had a ball, and put our names down to do it all again. Congratulations to the committee, and the Guild members who volunteered and exhibited quilts …………. you’ve all done very well!

I took photos, but the Coppyright Copper reminded me that I was allowed to take photos at exhibitions for personal use only.

Sometimes I think I am so good at designing quilts. Sometimes it just works so well.

Wish everyday’s design turned out as well as this one, though if I set out to make this, it wouldn’t be like this! Those stars and the Bears Paw would become applique of some sort, and not too sure about both borders being exactly the same fabric, and I probably wouldn’t use those colours either ………….

It still works OK as it is here though!

I think the worst part of having EQ to design quilts is that I can see far too many possiblilities and variations. I am so glad I can add them to this blog so someone can see them before I make just a few more changes!

This Burgoyne Surrounded by the Irish series is intriguing me.

I like this layout! The laciness of  the Burgoyne Surrounded block lightens the mood and adds variety in the texture of the blocks as well.

As a bonus, free space for quilting.

This series is a real shot of colour amongst the rest of the quilts I have added here. I should try using colours I don’t like more often!

However, what ever colour I use here, or what ever colour is used in a magazine or book, you should be able to see it like this……….

………….. and if you can see it like this you can add any colours you like! To see quilt pictures without colour you need a piece of red cellophane or perspex to look through. Or scan it in grey scale.

The thing to get right to make any design work is contrast, or lack of it, as seen in the colourless view.

Never reject a design because you don’t like the colours, just recolour it! How would Hi 5s look in blue and yellow, , ……….or brown and cream………. or purple and yellow, or ……………… insert your favourite colour combination here!

Neat ………….. lots of little pieces though.

This one doesn’t look as though the blocks are placed on point, but I do like it, even though that corner is still facing the wrong way. I must remember to check that future designs in this project file have corners all facing the correct way.

The sad part is, if I published this pattern with that corner uncorrected, there would be some people who would put the quilt together with one cockeyed corner because that is what the pattern said.

Others would put it the right way without ever noticing it was wrong. Some would notice and correct it and feel good that they were better than the designer, forgetting the designer got the rest of the quilt, and three out of four corners, around the right way.

And some would tell me about it in no uncertain terms. (This latter group would be more than capable of correcting the booboo without help, but would love to rub it in. And some of them are good friends! And others probably should be.)

By the time this is scheduled to be posted, I hope to be arriving at the Festival of Quilts, WAyville Showgrounds in Adelaide ……….. meeting old friends, making a few new ones, spending time hand quilting, spending money! It’s a hard life, but someone has to do it, and it may as well be me!

What if the narrow sashing is dark instead of the light (and therefore invisible) it has been in the previous nine designs in this series?

Nothing wrong with the idea, but this probably isn’t the best example of what it can do for a quilt design. Not a quilt I ever want to make.